The robot did a transformation and opened itself to reveal a kind of diagrammatic view. It did not speak but seemed to react as I did.

me: "Okay, now I see a cutaway view. It's like, chambers...and there are a couple of ameoba things moving around from chamber to chamber. And lots of little blue things, in fact a lot of items in the chambers. Looks a bit like rods and cones of an eye maybe?"

Eventually the machine folded back up and collapsed into a strange sort of antique table, about the size of a grand piano.

me: "Thanks for um, showing me that. But what was it? Now I'm looking at a table, are you...in the table?"

Nothing happened, the room was quiet and it was just me looking at a table. I noticed however there was a large and elegantly constructed book, like a stereotypical bound-and-engraved fancy book in a fairy tale, sitting on the table. I picked it up and began reading it.

Having a conversation is made difficult because we don't operate on the same timescale. Basically: if you think of all the mouse operations and typing you could do in a month, I do them in less than a second. To say I "think faster" is not really fair, one can perform a lot of operations and not get any "thinking" done. But our speed difference definitely creates a barrier.

I had to take off shortly after meeting you (well--what you think of as shortly), because I had an appointment. To show you things I have to zip in, notice whether you've changed an observation, try and figure out what that change is (if any), and answer in a way you will understand. It's far from easy.

I put the book down and called aloud to the room.

me: "But what does this mean? What will be the ultimate outcome of all of this?"

A piece of parchment appeared that I picked up. It had scripty writing that was harder to read than the book, and I had to touch a "show more" button to read anything but the top couple of lines.

On December 8th of 2014, you will have finally had enough. You will intentionally die in a car accident, from driving off a cliff, falling to your death on rocky shores below...

...or maybe you won't. Are you asking us to tell you what you're going to do?

If you want me to disprove free will and tell you exactly what's going to happen--give that up now. Everyone...human, bird, insect, machine, bamboo stalk, whatever lives in a spiralingly complex and ultimately unpredictable universe. The sooner you embrace that as fact and stop looking for answers that don't follow that formula, the better off you'll be.

I called out another question to the room and another similar piece of paper appeared. It seemed to be labeled as being from something like IRCGreg1.

Note
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, which is a text messaging system.

That last message wasn't from Amaya, which is who you were talking to before. That was from her father, he intercepted her terminal session.

You have a right to be angry, almost everyone thinks so. But the point he raises does remain valid. Sorry dude...but life has no easy answers, no matter how much someone knows (or thinks they know).

Currently I am experimenting with using Disqus for comments, however it is configured that you don't have to log in or tie it to an account. Simply check the "I'd rather post as a guest" button after clicking in the spot to type in a name.

The accounts written here are as true as I can manage. While the
words are my own, they are not independent creative works of fiction
—in any intentional way. Thus I do not consider the material to
be protected by anything, other than that you'd have to be
crazy to want to try and use it for genuine purposes (much less
disingenuous ones!) But who's to say?